“Yes,” Margot whispered.
“You know what that makes you?” he asked.
“A tool,” she said. “It makes me a tool.”
Griff stood up and stared at the brick facade of the Pacific National Bank. Nantucket was an old place; no doubt endless dramas had taken place on Main Street, countless treacheries, and here was one more. What Margot had done was monumentally bad. Bad, bad, bad.
“I liked you,” Griff said. “I wanted to be impressive and win that job for you. And then, when I got signed off and you weren’t the one who did it, I was relieved. Because I didn’t want to have to see you after I’d been cut.”
“I didn’t do the signing off because I couldn’t face you,” Margot said. She had made Bev do the signing off for Griff, and Bev hadn’t wanted to do it, either. She had been incredulous that Tricom passed over Griff. She kept saying, It just doesn’t make sense.
“So the other guy got hired, then?” Griff said.
“No, actually,” Margot said. “They hired Nanette Kim. She lasted six weeks, then declared that Tricom was a hostile workplace for women and minorities. I tried to come back to you—I did, Griff—but you had already signed with Blankstar.”
Griff nodded. “Nice,” he said. He turned and started walking down the street. “I’ll see you around, Margot.”
Margot squeezed her hands together and watched his figure recede down the street. She was dying to follow him; she was scrambling for the words that would make him forgive her. But those words didn’t exist. He had made one small tactical error—he had given Margot something to ridicule—and Margot had turned it into a deal breaker to advance her own romantic agenda.
If Griff wanted to, he could call Miller-Sawtooth and speak to Harry Fry and relay the details of their conversation. Margot wouldn’t get fired, but she might get disciplined. She almost wanted Griff to call, she wanted to be punished, she wanted him to get even—but she knew he wouldn’t. He was too good a guy. And he had just done the exact thing she’d feared and walked out of her life, which felt like punishment enough.
Margot rose from the bench. Her feet, in her dyed-to-match pumps, were aching, and she slid the shoes off. Some nights had good karma and some nights were cursed, and this night had been cursed from the beginning.
The whole weekend had been cursed. Margot, with her perfect instincts, had been right to dread it.
As she turned the corner onto Orange Street, she saw a figure walking toward her—a man, alone, and she filled with dread. Not possible. But yes.
He called out, “Margot?”
She knew she should walk past him, but he stopped, and instinctively she did, too.
“Have you seen Rosalie?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
“Your father kicked us out of the wedding,” Edge said. “Rosalie was mortified. She doesn’t get it, and I can’t explain it to her. She thinks Doug kicked us out because he doesn’t approve of her and me.”
“Oh,” Margot said. She was close enough to Edge to smell him. He was wearing Aventus; she would know the scent anywhere. Margot couldn’t believe it. He was wearing the scent she’d bought for him—finally!—but he was wearing it for Rosalie. Edge was a cheese rat, but Margot was too worn out to fight with him. “Why don’t you just tell Rosalie the truth?” she said. “Tell her about me.”
“I can’t,” he said. “She’ll leave me. Of course, after tonight, she might leave me anyway.” He gave Margot a weak smile, and Margot was surprised that he didn’t seem more concerned, but that was how Edge was with women—easy come, easy go. If Rosalie left, he would meet someone else, perhaps someone even younger and more inappropriate, whom he would marry and then divorce. Margot was fortunate to have escaped getting in any deeper. In her head she knew this, and she wondered if someday her heart might follow.
“See you, Edge,” she said. She leaned in and gave John Edgar Desvesnes III, her fifty-nine-year-old sometime lover, a kiss good-bye, which really was exactly that, and then she walked barefoot up the street toward home.
THE NOTEBOOK, PAGE 39
The Video
Back when Daddy and I were married, there was no such thing as videotaping a wedding. Some people we knew did home movies, but my mother thought this was in poor taste. I haven’t often agreed with my mother, but I am tempted to here. Do I love the idea of some guy with a video camera following your every move over the course of your wedding weekend? Not really. Do I think you’ll ever pull the video out to watch with Intelligent, Sensitive Groom-to-Be on your anniversary, or inflict it on friends? No, I don’t. But there is a part of me now, as I’m lying in bed and I feel my body and mind slipping away, that would love nothing more than to have the chance to watch my wedding again.